Summer, 90 miles from the WalmartThe preboyescent A-girls are backFrom Ranchowhachamacallit(fruitnutland) girling the small-craftArmada, catfighting when inClose quarters, pirates battling to spend nightsWith Nana-papa to watch (argh!)Lord of the Rings, Episode whichevah.

2

Ninety miles from the fat-ass WalmartSo-called SupR store, we abideLucretian rules, live for todayAll atoms being equal doctrinallyIn their immortality.Sandhills at the creekmouth squawkLike mechanized oogah hornsJarring loos teeth fillings, while eaglesFly hithith in morning fishing tasks.

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90 miles from the WalmartDouble-trailer logging rigs comeDown the county road from the Blind Sucker,The road washboarded like Inner MongoliaOr the SomalianOutback.I looked at snowmobile clubs’ magsFound a red arrow and sign: Ice Bridge to CannadaNo spelling test for licenses needed mayhaps?

4

Came a night our pal Bill fledDemons (in his cups), plowed anAlyouminnie-um craft intoRocky shoals, not once, but twice,Which now, by local custom meansHis name attaches to said landmass,Until the next aqauatic bonerCaptures the temporary prize.

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Ninety miles from WalmartOne learns to avoid the lodge’sLaundry on all rainydays, you seeIt spawns sudden catfights in the heatAnd sweaty close quarters, brings outCompetitive, venomous streaksAmong some summer choring folkLeaving risible scars in egos.

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Ninety miles from the WalmartFishers don’t fish, I refer toEtymological odditiesNot churcy lore of St. Jamesians’Provenence, we have a good friendWho badmouths life in big shittiesAnd interstate trailgaters,Life here seeking silence from all creatures.

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Ninety miles from the WalmartThere are more drunks on riversAnd lakes than on the gravel roads;Dining out here meands a nightAt the Stump, where they grind meatThemselves, and shape it like god,One might say away from earshoitOf churchological ubers and megas.

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Last night we burned verdant sweet corn husksTo keep busking bears and coons away,Today picked a gallon of blobs, andA quart of succulent red razziesWhile the dog patrolled our perimeter.We grazed on teaberries, not oneOf the maker’s top five products.We burn time here, unlike belowWhere the reverse seems to obtain.

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This place where we all wear headnetsNot mesh to keep out bugs, but clear,Invisiblejobs to keep out thoseNot here, the othes, bogeymen,Pols and tourists, those not OF here,Those with ideas of changesAgainst which our nests area conesOf privacy and other fictions.

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Sixty miles from Walmart, on the GemOf the Huron, we amble acrossStepped ledges bearing fossil pilesOf zoic ages long goneLife preserved in limestone plates,Which argues for crematorialOptions to lyse mysteriesEons beforfe the Walmartozoic Age.

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Ninety miles from Walmart, standingOn a beach redolent of fish,Rubbernecking the space stationBoogeying northwest to southeastMost lickety-split in the high blue yonderUp where dead dreams float past us,We have no money or means leftTo put men up there looking outward.

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Winds here insist as in del FuegoHowl like hungry banshees hidingIn the forests like psychotic highwaymen,Stealing dreams of cityfoolk walkingArmed with hog legs in holstersConvinced they can take down the monsters(that live solely in their shaky minds)Here resides peace lacking Walmart trappings.

90 miles from Walmart, sameAs a million miles from CongressWe pass our days in pure silence,Hear only wind, wave, birds and wolves,Sparing us false songs of politicalFools, lustily beating their suited chests,Howing like predators intentOn crushing alien species, say us?

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Some ninety miles from Walmart, weLive not in end-times or past-timesBut the flintiest of now-times, hopingTo eke out life, never-mind the happies,We dare look down no paths save our own,Stepping over pitfalls and mines,Some made by god in our genes,The rest blindly laid by mankind.

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I doubt that God has ever feltThe sweetness of ripe blackberriesRendered slowly into viscous jamThat sits on toast, gleaming with allure.Simple pleasures surround, engulf usOut here in the sugar sand and cedarSwamps, where tamarack faerie ringsSprout, grow old, and pass on unseen,Ninety miles from the Walmart.

Locals road-hunt pats, slow-rolling as didAll before them in their automobiles,Mostly shooting from windows of the fortsOn wheels; pats by morning, timber-doodlesBy even when it darkens enough to seeYour muzzleflash and recover the take.Summerines are closing up, runningSouth to stillborn, manufactured lives.

Here collective is a verb of survivalNot a political noun espoused by ismites.Neighbors share with prompts or churhercion,Hard times on this land never out of mind,A wonter hoves we tug down chooksNot for style, but warmth, dictates of MTVQuashed by reality 90 milesFrom artificial life in the Walmart.